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What are the current psychedelic renaissance’s effects on environmental activism and how can the nature-connectedness that’s bolstered by hallucinogenic drugs galvanise social movements and ultimately inspire faster action against the climate crisis?
We’ve recently seen a growing acceptance within scientific fields that controlled psychedelic experiences can successfully transform mental health.
Despite persistent legal complications and public stigma surrounding their use, scientists are still dedicated to changing our minds about their therapeutic potential. Their benefits exist outside the scope of medical settings, too.
In the last year, two peer-reviewed studies have uncovered evidence that psychedelics might influence pro-environmental behaviours and a philosophical paper published in early 2022 argued in favour of using them as biophilia-enhancing agents.
In other words, LSD, psilocybin, and DMT (among numerous others) offer a promising solution to widespread detachment from the climate crisis. This connectedness feels particular necessity as we approach multiple ‘irreversible’ tipping points far faster than the UN expected.
According to its latest IPCC assessment, the many repercussions that were once deemed avoidable no longer are, and it will be the world’s most vulnerable communities that bear the brunt.
Regardless of how alarming this is, however, a Pew Research survey from 2017 found that while three-quarters of Americans supposedly feel concerned about personally caring for the planet, just one in five are actually motivated to make an effort daily.
At the same time, the 100 companies responsible for 71 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions take no decisive action to curb their impact, nor do governments hold them accountable.
On this note, it’s thought that dissecting how hallucinogenic drugs amplify the sense that the Earth is part of us, our bodies, our lives, and that we are a part of it – thus enabling us to view it as an extension of ourselves – may alleviate policymaker’s inertia in responding to the ecological emergency.
‘We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us,’ wrote Aldo Leopold in 1949. ‘When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.’
Echoing this is Sam Gandy, a scientist at the Beckley Foundation, which is a psychedelic research group in the UK.
‘The ecological devastation we are experiencing now is a side effect of a nature disconnection,’ he says. ‘Reconnecting us to nature is something I see as one of the most important things we can be working towards right now as a species.’
This radical idea that psychedelics could pose a better means of combatting the climate crisis than the development of innovative tech, for example, was most recently brought forward by Gail Bradbrook, who co-founded Extinction Rebellion.
Experimenting with plant medicine to figure out ‘the codes for social change’ that she needed to unlock, Bradbrook’s healing journey was the catalyst behind XR’s launch into the bold, international movement we know today.
